Sunday, 19 July 2015

On 19th July 2015, the Saudi led coalition airstrikes killed at least 16 civilians, including 3 women and 9 children, and injured at least 16 more, damaging and destroying at least 11 homes, in the town of Yarim in Yemen.

This is HRW's report of the incident:

At about 2 a.m. on July 19, airstrikes killed at least 16 civilians, including three women and nine children, and wounded at least 16 civilians, in Yareem town, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) south of Sanaa.

Human Rights Watch examined the site on July 22. The strike had partially damaged, and in some cases completely destroyed, 11 one-story residential homes and a two-story building.

Human Rights Watch also established that the site is located about 200 meters (219 yards) from the entrance to the 55th Rocket Artillery Brigade. Residents told Human Rights Watch that since the beginning of the air campaign in March, and on that night, they heard anti-aircraft guns being fired from the base. One nearby resident said that the now-dismantled Republican Guard, the military wing under the command of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh’s son, Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh, had controlled the base since 1994. The base had been the main depot of Scud ballistic missiles for the Yemeni military, the resident said, but those had been removed about four years ago, and now the main weapons at the base were artillery rockets. There had been as many as 2,000 troops at the base in the past, he said, but only 300 troops were there since current conflict started.

Local residents told Human Rights Watch that at about 1:30 a.m., three strikes hit the military base at 10-minute intervals. The fourth strike hit the residential area.

Sabah Saleh Ahmed al-Boghomy, 50, said she and her husband owned most of the houses in the neighborhood, and her relatives lived in several of them. She said she was asleep at the time of the strike and was awakened by her daughter screaming and shaking her, saying that planes were bombing the military base. Al-Boghomy tried to calm her by taking her outside:

"After we left the home, all of a sudden the windows of the house shattered and the roof collapsed. We heard a loud explosion but had no idea that it was in our own yard. At the time my three sons, their wives and children and my two [other] daughters were still inside the house…. I remember hearing my neighbor screaming, “Save my children, save me, we are under the rubble!” "

Her family survived the attack without injury, but she said she knew of at least 12 neighbors who were killed in the strike. The attack destroyed six of their family homes and three cars.

A local resident, Hana Saad al-Nazhi, told Human Rights Watch that when she heard the first explosion, she grabbed her children and hid in a small room in their home:

"We stayed in that room while all the strikes happened, so I assumed that my brothers were safe and had escaped, only to realize when I went outside that one strike had hit my brother’s house. It wiped his house to the ground, they blew it up and killed him and his daughters… What was the military target in my brother’s house?"

Another brother, Radwan Saad al-Nazhi, came to the site of the strike after hearing the blasts from his home, located a few streets away. He told Human Rights Watch that altogether eight members of two of his brothers’ families were killed, five of them children. His sister, Hana Saad al-Nazhi, and her children were the only ones who survived the airstrike, but with injuries:

"I am not employed, my brothers were, I am not. I make a living doing odd jobs in the streets.… I had to take my sister and her three kids out of the hospital because I could not pay their bill."

Muhammad al-Faqih, 45, said he was sitting in his living room when he heard the initial strikes on the military base. He grabbed his clothes and woke his five children and wife, telling them to get dressed and be ready to leave. His son Osama al-Faqih, 20, was walking down the steps out of the house just as the strike hit about 20 meters (7 feet) from the door of their home. Muhammad al-Faqih, standing behind him just inside the door, was blown back into the house:

"We scrambled to our feet and got out of the house, and I heard cries. I turned to my left and saw my neighbor, an older woman. She was lying on the ground, with a large rock crushing her legs. She was begging us to help her so we did. After we helped move it, we rushed off to get my son, who we realized was injured, to the hospital. As we got to the main road we saw another neighbor, Salma, wandering along, and wailing for help. She was badly burned and her head was open and gushing blood.… I don’t know what happened to her."

Osama had a metal shard lodged in his neck that the doctors planned to remove, Muhammad al-Faqih told Human Rights Watch. He said that they were lucky that other families had helped to pay their medical bill. His house was only slightly damaged by the strike.

Ali Muhammad al-Milah was in his house, which was destroyed in the strike, at the time of the blast:

"I didn’t see anything when the explosion happened, it was all black. My ears started ringing, they are still ringing now, days later. I came back the next morning and saw five bodies just lying on the ground, including the bodies of two young kids. Only yesterday when I was here they found the body of another kid, a young girl. They pulled her out of the rubble."

Another resident said he heard a fifth strike about 10 minutes later, again on the military base.

The military base was a legitimate military target. The attack that struck the residential neighborhood should be investigated by the coalition to determine if it was unlawfully targeted and whether all feasible precautions had been taken to minimize civilian loss of life and property.

WARNING: the media below is graphic and distressing.
It is placed here as evidence as war crimes to call for an independent
investigation and to call on the international community to respect the
Arms Treaty by stopping the supply of weapons to Saudi Arabic as they
are clearly targeting civilians.

A brief translation of the above news reports is as follows:

Saudi warplanes have bombed Harat Al Salol in the city of Yarim in Ibb province, killing 13—five women,five children and three men and injuring 23 others. The raid was carried out on Sunday morning on a residential neighborhood, attacking the main street and a market at the entrance of Yarim city with 5 missiles. That resulted in the destruction of 11 homes and damaged scores of adjoining buildings and houses. The city is facing difficulties in providing rescue services and medical aid due to insufficient resources and the crowding of victims at the city hospital. Scarcity of medical supplies in health centers and the critical conditions of the injuries contribute to expectations of a rising death toll.

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